Probation for Ex-Director of Nonprofit Group Tied to Assemblyman

A woman who worked for more than 30 years as the director of a nonprofit organization long controlled by Assemblyman Vito J. Lopez was sentenced to probation on Tuesday for providing fake documents in response to a grand jury subpoena.

The woman, Christiana M. Fisher, was the executive director of the Ridgewood Bushwick Senior Citizens Council, which provides home health care assistance, job training and other services. In 2010, the New York City Department of Investigation began inquiring about her salary after tax documents showed that it rose to $659,591 from $235,135.

After the inquiry, Ms. Fisher “created or caused to be created three false documents purporting to be resolutions” from the organization’s board of directors and raising her salary, prosecutors for the United States attorney’s office said. Those documents were given to federal prosecutors in response to a grand jury subpoena.

Ms. Fisher pleaded guilty in November to contempt of court, a misdemeanor, and faced a maximum sentence of six months. In a memorandum sent to Magistrate Judge James C. Francis IV of Federal District Court in Manhattan, her lawyer, Douglas E. Grover, said she should not be sent to jail because the loss of her job and damage to her reputation had already exacted a heavy toll.

Ms. Fisher had been the campaign treasurer for Mr. Lopez, who incorporated the Senior Citizens Council in 1976. Mr. Lopez lost his committee chairmanship after he was accused of sexually harassing two women who worked in his district office.

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During a statement in court, Ms. Fisher referred to “mistakes” she had made. “I have lost my livelihood,” she continued. “I ask you to view these events in the context of my whole life.”

Prosecutors did not ask Judge Francis to send Ms. Fisher to jail, but requested in their own memorandum that he “recognize the seriousness of the offense.” An assistant United States attorney, Carrie H. Cohen, elaborated in court, saying that Ms. Fisher had not simply provided an untruthful answer when questioned unexpectedly, but had engaged in a more deliberate deceit.

“This is a case where the defendant created false compensation documents or got false compensation documents to be created,” she said. “She set in motion a very detailed and somewhat sophisticated fraud.”

In sentencing Ms. Fisher, Judge Francis acknowledged a “lifetime of good works” but added that Ms. Fisher had “obtained compensation without board approval” and tried to hide that by means of a “mechanism designed to provide inaccurate information.”

In addition to a year of probation, Judge Francis ordered that Ms. Fisher forfeit $170,659, which prosecutors said was the amount she received as a pay increase “pursuant to the false board documents.”